Australian History
Monday, March 10, 1788. : French explorer Jean-Francois La Perouse is observed departing Botany Bay, never to be seen again.
Although the Australian continent was claimed by the British, it was an object of interest for a number of European countries. The Portuguese, Dutch and French all charted sections of the coastline at different times. Following on from Dutch exploration of parts of the north and west coasts, the French, organised several expeditions to the continent. In 1756, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville sighted the Great Barrier Reef. In 1772, two French expeditions set out to investigate whether the land James Cook charted in 1770 was “Terra Australis”, or the great southern continent. The first was headed by Captain Dufresne, and the second was under the command of Louis-François-Marie Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn, who landed on the northern coast of Dirk Hartog Island.
In 1785, Louis XVI of France appointed Jean-Francois La Perouse to lead an expedition to explore the north and south Pacific, including the coastlines of the Far East and of New Holland, as the Dutch had named Australia. Reports were to be sent back to the King via existing European outposts in the Pacific. A scientific expedition, its main purposes were to add to discoveries made by James Cook in the Pacific, continue charting the region, and to open and establish new maritime and trade routes. La Perouse would command two ships, the L’Astrolabe and La Boussole, both former storeships and reclassified as frigates for the expedition.
The First Fleet of convicts to New South Wales arrived at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. The Fleet remained at harbour while Captain Arthur Phillip explored for a more suitable site for settlement, as Botany Bay lacked natural resources or a safe harbour. Six days after the Fleet’s arrival, two French ships were noticed at the entrance to Botany Bay, where they were being prevented by bad weather from entering the bay. Suspecting the ships to be those of La Perouse, Phillip sent two non-transport ships, the Supply and the Sirius, to greet the French but did not speak directly with La Perouse himself. A former spy in the Napoleonic war between Great Britain and France, Phillip felt it was prudent to avoid revealing his presence as the Commander of the First Fleet. However, after Phillip led the First Fleet eight kilometres north to Port Jackson, he did maintain indirect cordial relations with La Perouse and his crew.
Marine officer Watkin Tench, spent some time with La Perouse and his crew while they remained camped on the North Shore of Botany Bay. La Perouse handed over his journals and letters to be sent back to Europe, as per the King’s orders, and it was in his journals that he revealed his intentions to be back in France by December. Abiding in Botany Bay for six weeks, the French refitted their ships, built a stockade and an observatory, and planted a garden. On 10 March 1788, the La Boussole and L’Astrolabe were observed by British lookouts on South Head departing Botany Bay. This was the last recorded sighting of La Perouse’s expedition. It is believed that the ships were wrecked in a cyclone that hit the Solomon Islands in April or May. The wreckage of the ships was only discovered in 1964.
Australian History
Monday, March 10, 1794. : The Reverend Samuel Marsden, who became known colloquially as the ‘Flogging Parson’, arrives in the New South Wales penal colony.
The Reverend Samuel Marsden was born in Yorkshire in 1764. After he was ordained in 1793, he sailed for the new penal colony of New South Wales, arriving on 10 March 1794. He settled in Parramatta, becoming Chaplain, landowner and magistrate. He also earned a reputation as the “Flogging Parson”, because even by the standards of his day, he inflicted extremely severe, cruel punishments. His savagery to convicts was probably the result of his hatred for Roman Catholics, as many convicts were political prisoners of Irish origin.
Despite his reputation in Australia, Marsden was instrumental in starting the Christian missions to New Zealand, where he and others were well received among the Maori people. He is credited with holding the first Christian service in the Islands on Christmas Day in 1814. Marsden is thus remembered favourably in New Zealand, and it is believed he is the one who introduced sheep to the islands.
World History
Saturday, March 10, 1906. : Over 1060 workers are killed in a coal dust explosion in France.
Coal mining has a long history of being a perilous occupation. One of the biggest dangers is that coal dust itself is highly combustible, a problem compounded by the fact that the dust can adhere a centimetre in thickness to surfaces of pillars, walls and equipment in the mines, increasing the combustibility of the mine even further.
The idea that coal dust itself could present a problem met with considerable resistance as industrialisation powered the increasing need for coal in the nineteenth century. There was no way to mine coal without generating coal dust, so the problem was largely ignored. However, mine owners were forced to look at safety and working conditions following one of coal mining’s most disastrous explosions, which occurred on 10 March 1906 at Courrieres, Pas-de-Calais, Northern France. A coal dust explosion killed between 1060 and 1099 workers. Following the tragedy, 45,000 went on strike for nearly two months against the appalling working conditions, ending only when the army suppressed the protests.
World History
Monday, March 10, 1969. : The killer of Martin Luther King is sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He became a Baptist minister, and African American civil rights activist. In his fight for civil rights, he organised and led marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Martin Luther King’s life was tragically cut short when he was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968. James Earl Ray, a man who harboured intense hatred of African-Americans, was convicted of his murder and, on 10 March 1969, was sentenced by a Memphis court to 99 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to the murder on the understanding that he would be put to death by the electric chair. Three days later, he retracted his plea of guilty, claiming he had been set up by a gun dealer in Montreal known only as Raoul. Until Ray’s death on 23 April 1998, he fought for the trial his guilty plea had forestalled, even winning the support of Martin Luther King’s own family.
World History
Wednesday, March 10, 1982. : The ‘Jupiter Effect’, in which Los Angeles is supposed to be ravaged by an immense earthquake following the alignment of the planets, fails to eventuate.
The ‘Jupiter Effect’ was a chain of cataclysmic events proposed by astrophysicist Dr John Gribbin and fellow author Stephen Plageman in 1974. Gribbin’s theory suggested that when the nine planets of our solar system aligned in March 1982, it would trigger an enormous earthquake which would destroy Los Angeles. To summarise, the authors proposed that the tidal forces created by the alignment of all the planets on the same side of the sun would generate sunspots which would in themselves create solar flares. In turn, these solar flares would generate streams of solar particles which would then enter the earth’s upper atmosphere, changing the weather, slowing the rate of the earth’s rotation, and ultimately triggering earthquakes, especially on the American West Coast. Essentially, Earth would be caught in the centre of a huge gravity struggle between the sun and the other planets, particularly the gas giant Jupiter. John Gribbin retracted his own theory in the 17 July 1980 issue of New Scientist.
On 10 March 1982, the planets aligned, though not perfectly. All nine of the planets were on the same side of the sun, as predicted, but scattered over approximately 90 degrees, in what scientists call a “Grand Alignment”. There were no cataclysmic disturbances, either on the earth or under it.